If Only
by Cold Canary
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own Descendants, or the song. The song (and its reprise) are both sung by Dove Cameron in the movie. However, this is still an Evie/Doug story, not a Mal/Ben story. Nor is this story really going to be a songfic... it's just inspired by the song and will have none of the lyrics in the story itself, just used as the chapter titles. (reposted due to issues)
1. A Million Thoughts In My Head

If Only

Chapter One: A Million Thoughts in My Head

 **Summary:** Out of her and her friends, Evie is the only one that has any inkling what being loved feels like, but once she and Doug start hanging out more after Ben's coronation, her feelings of love are jumbled.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Descendants, or the song. The song (and its reprise) are both sung by Dove Cameron in the movie. However, this is still an Evie/Doug story, not a Mal/Ben story. Nor is this story really going to be a songfic... it's just inspired by the song and will have none of the lyrics in the story itself, just used as the chapter titles.

Evie had grown up with a mother who had taught her the importance of beauty. So between her, Mal, Carlos and Jay, Evie was the one that knew some form of love from her villainous parent. Grimhilde had always wanted Evie to marry up in the world, and give them the better life that Grimhilde herself had not been able to supply, due to her status as a villain. But at the same time, Evie had been told that her beauty was what was going to get the guy, and that her skills at cooking and cleaning would be what kept him in her grasp. So it wasn't a perfect and clear view of love, but it was Grimhilde's version of tough love.

Then Ben had made the proclamation that some of the children on the Isle of the Lost be given a chance to live amongst the residents of Auradon, and Evie was among the four chosen to test the waters, along with her best friends of course. She knew that there were only going to be so many princes that she could try and win over with her beauty, but striking out right off the bat with Ben, her ego was a little bruised. And it wasn't even Ben who had rejected her... it had been his prissy little Princess girlfriend, Audrey. But Evie hadn't let that little speedbump deter her. There had to be other princes that she could go for.

Of course, the next one that she had tried for was Chad Charming, but Doug, sweet and adorable Doug, had been right about Chad. Chad had indeed inherited his father's charm, but he had ended up being a huge jerk, only wanting to hang out with her and manipulate her into doing his homework, only to turn around and tell Mr. Deley that she had been cheating. But there was Doug, yet again, coming to her aid and convincing Mr. Deley not to have her expelled, since without her magic mirror, she hadn't been cheating at that particular moment, and therefore was no proof that she had ever cheated at all.

After all of that had settled, had come Family Day. Chad had insulted Mal, Jay and Evie, and after Evie had asked her mirror who the biggest jerk in the land was, and showed Chad his own reflection, he had shoved her arm out of his way and Jay had come to her defense, but before a fight could break out, Evie had knocked Chad out with the spray that Mal had given her. Unfortunately, when Chad had passed out, he had fallen backwards towards Doug, and her sweet Doug had caught Chad while Lonnie and Audrey had fussed over him, trying to get him to wake up. After Evie and her friends had run off, Doug had tried to talk to her about what had happened, and she tried to apologize, but Chad had just gotten in the way, and Doug had eventually walked away from her.

But even with all of that, Evie had still started to fall for Doug. He was so sweet to her, and she didn't blame him for siding with his friends over her. He had known them way longer then he had known her, and after her stunt of knocking Chad out, he had good reason to not want to fight his friends over the issue of talking to her. So when they had all been at the after party for Ben's coronation, she had danced with him. And things seemed to be going great... at least until the party ended.

The party had ended well past midnight, and having been standing and dancing all day and night, Evie's feet had started to hurt, so she had sat down on the edge of the patio and had taken her shoes off when Doug and come up to her and sat down as well. He had taken his jacket off, and when he had noticed that she was shivering, he had draped the deep red jacket over her shoulders. They hadn't actually talked since Family Day, so neither knew just what to say.

"I'm..." Evie started to say while Doug was saying, "Look..." but at hearing the other one speaking, they had both stopped talking.

"You can go first." Doug said after a moment.

"I'm sorry about the other day." Evie apologized.

"You reacted out of instinct." Doug rationalized.

"What do you mean?" Evie asked.

"You grew up in a very different way than we have, the way that you respond and react to what people say to you, and how they treat you, it's different then the way that we were all raised to react. But Chad should never have said those things to you or your friends." Doug explained.

"You stood up for me in Chemistry, why didn't you stand up for me after that incident?" Evie asked in a small voice.

"Are you mad that I didn't?" Doug asked.

"Not mad, just curious. I have an idea as to why, but I want to know from you why." Evie replied.

"I wasn't even sure what I was wanting to say to you afterwards, so when Chad kept trying to get me to walk away from you, I had nothing to fend him off with." Doug explained.

"What about now?" Evie asked.

"Now? Now I've been kicking myself for not standing up for you. You deserve someone who will stand by your side no matter what, and after the other day, I don't know if I'm still able to be that guy for you Evie." Doug admitted.

"It's in the past Doug. The only thing for us to do now is to learn from it and move on... if you still want to be with me. I mean, if you aren't sure about my choice to be good, I totally understand. 16 years of living under my mother's tutelage definitely outweighs an afternoon of choosing to be good." Evie said quickly.

"I want to get to know this new Evie. I was getting to know the Evie that was trying to make her mother proud by being evil. If you'll allow it, I would like to be by your side as you figure out who you are without her mistakes hovering over your head, and without her guiding every action you make." Doug said after thinking about what he wanted for a couple of minutes.

"That sounds nice." Evie said with a small smile.

"It's getting pretty late, may I walk you back to your dorm?" Doug asked as he jumped down the small distance to the grass below their feet and held his hand out to her.

"I'd really like that, thank you." Evie replied as she took his hand and gently climbed down from the edge and picked up her shoes.

The walk from the grounds to Evie's dorm was a silent one. The entire time that they were walking next to each other, Evie kept having the overwhelming feeling to just take Doug's hand in hers and lace their fingers together, but she refrained. Just because they had danced together at the party did not mean that they were dating. They were on rocky ground still from Family Day, and it was going to take some time before they could get back to how things were between them just before Family Day. And even though they didn't hold hands as they walked, Doug did keep a hand placed lightly on the small of Evie's back to steady her as she walked along the uneven ground barefoot.

Once they got reached the part of the school that the dorms were in, Evie's mind started racing. _'Is Doug going to walk me all the way to my door? Is he going to try and kiss me goodnight? Does he still have a crush on me? Do I still have feelings for him? What will Mal, Carlos and Jay say when I tell them that Doug walked me back? What does Doug think about how close I am with Jay and Carlos? Is he jealous of them? Possessive? Are we going to be able to get past the other day and be friends, or something more, one day? Does he want to be more than friends with me one day? Do I want to be more than friends with him? Could this feeling in my stomach lead to love? Do I even know what real, true love is? What will Mother say about my relationship with Doug, if it ever becomes a relationship? Will she be happy for me, regardless of the fact that Doug is half dwarf, and the son of one of her enemies, instead of him being a prince? Or will she be disappointed that I chose someone who she would see as beneath me? Should I even tell her that I kind of like a guy who isn't a prince, and who is the son of one of her enemies?'_ Evie thought.

So many thoughts speeding through her mind at a rapid pace, and Evie could barely focus on one of them before the next one popped into her head. And she was honestly confused by all of her thoughts. ' _Are all my thoughts really centered on Doug in some way? Is this what the beginning of falling in love with someone feel like?'_ Evie didn't know the answer to any of the questions that her mind was throwing at her, but before she could even start to analyze any of them properly, she and Doug had come to a stop in front of the door of her dorm. Evie wasn't sure what she wanted to happen. Doug decided what would happen.

"Good night Evie." Doug said before taking one of her hands in his, lifting it to his lips, and kissing the back of it.

"Good night Doug." Evie breathed out. She was going to have write down every single question that she had regarding Doug and analyze everything that she could be feeling before she went to bed tonight.


	2. Should I Let My Heart Keep Listening?

If Only

Chapter Two: Should I Let My Heart Keep Listening?

Evie couldn't stop thinking about Doug once she had climbed into bed. Based on the fact that all of her thoughts were about Doug in one way or another, Evie was starting to think that she might be falling in love with him, ' _but what is love?'_ Evie couldn't help but think to herself. Her mother had taught her about beauty and how to be a good housewife, but Grimhilde had never taught Evie about love, or what it felt like. _'Did Mother ever love Snow's father? Does she love me? How can I tell if I love Doug, or if I'm falling in love with him, if I don't know what love is, or what it feels like?'_ Evie thought to herself with a sigh.

After what felt like hours of tossing and turning, Evie glanced over at Mal's empty bed. If Mal had been there, Evie would have woken her up to talk her feelings through, and ask Mal to help her figure out what exactly she was feeling. But Mal wasn't in their room because she was with King Ben. _'I wish that I could have what Ben and Mal have.'_ Evie thought with another sigh. She was jealous of the fact that her best friend, whose mother had treated her worse than Grimhilde had treated Evie, and who should know less about love then Evie, was the first one to find love in Auradon. _'And with a Prince-turned-King no less.'_ Evie's mind reminded her.

As her thoughts kept circling, now adding jealous thoughts of Ben and Mal to the mix of all thoughts Doug, Evie threw her covers back and got out of bed. She needed to think straight, and the only way that she would be able to do that is to do something that calms her down. And that was by sewing... or pacing. And since it was the middle of the night, Evie decided on the latter instead of the former due to not wanting to walk the girls on either side of hers and Mal's room with the sewing machine. But after an hour of pacing, Evie came to the realization that pacing wasn't going to help her this time.

Glancing at her purse, Evie could feel the pull coming from her cell phone, as well as her magic mirror. _'Could the answers to all of my questions be as easy as talking to Doug? If I use the mirror to see if Doug is awake or asleep, and then text him, could everything start to fall into place?'_ Evie didn't know if her mirror and her phone were really the answers, but at this point, she didn't see how she was going to get any sleep if she didn't at least try. Walking over to where her purse was hanging off the back of the chair that was set up at the table with her sewing machine, Evie pulled the two devices out and then sat down.

"Mirror, mirror, in my hand..." Evie started to say, but then stopped. She had no idea what to ask it so that the last word would rhyme with 'hand'. With a frustrated sigh, Evie lowered her head to the table. She had known that the mirror wasn't really going to help, she hadn't listened to her head. She wanted to listen to her heart like Mal and Ben had declared at the coronation earlier. And her heart had wanted so desperately to believe that the mirror would be able to show her if Doug was awake or asleep.

Lifting her head, Evie looked at her phone. It had been a welcome gift of sorts for her, Mal, Jay and Carlos when they had arrived, so she didn't have too many numbers in her contacts list, really only the ones that mattered, but she stopped sort of pressing Doug's name to send him a text. What would she say? _'What's wrong with you? You have questions about your feelings for him, and you want to talk to him about them. Ask him if he's awake. The worse that will happen is that he's asleep and doesn't get the message until the morning.'_ Her mind was right, but Evie still held off on opening a new text with him. _'Even if he is already asleep, the text could wake him up and he'll be happy that it's you.'_ Evie couldn't help but smile at that. It wasn't from her head, but from her heart.

 **Hey... are you awake? – Evie**

After typing the message out, Evie didn't stop to think about sending it. She knew that if she waited, there would be a good chance that she would chicken out, and erase every word and then try and get some sleep. But after she hit 'send' she started pacing again. She obviously had strong feelings for Doug, or else she wouldn't have been curious as to why exactly he hadn't stood up to Chad when he had tried to talk to her after the fiasco at Family Day, but were those feelings really ones that warranted her thinking that she might be falling in love with him? Evie wasn't sure, but what she was sure of was that if Doug still liked her after she had just sent a text to him in the middle of the night, asking if he was awake, then she was definitely going to stick around to find out what her feelings meant.

 **For a beautiful Princess such as yourself, always. – Doug**

 **Can you come over? I can't sleep and I would like to talk. – Evie**

 **I'll be over shortly. – Doug**

Evie let out a sigh of relief. He didn't seem mad, or at least his messages didn't make him seem mad, so she was going to take that as a good sign. After all, if someone was made about being sent a text in the middle of the night, whether they were awake or not (mostly if they weren't awake), wouldn't they have said something? That's what Evie always assumed would happen if that were to ever be the situation. But living on an island with no Wi-Fi up until two weeks ago, she had never been in that situation before, so she was just going off of assumptions.

"Evie? It's Doug." Doug said after knocking lightly a couple of times.

"It's unlocked." Evie called out. She was sure that if she walked over to open the door herself that she would end up making a fool of herself.

"Hey." Doug said once he had stepped into the room and closed the door quickly, yet quietly, behind him.

"Hi." Evie replied timidly.

"Is everything okay? Why can't you sleep?" Doug asked and Evie could hear the obvious concern in his voice.

"Too many things are floating around in my head." Evie admitted.

"Anything in particular that you needed to talk to me instead of Mal about?" Doug asked.

"Well... some of them involve feelings jealous about Mal and Ben, but most of them are about you." Evie replied, her voice dropping to a whisper with the last seven words.

"I can try and help you with your jealous feelings, but I didn't catch the last part." Doug said.

"Most of my thoughts are about you." Evie repeated, only a little bit louder.

"I see... and what are your thoughts about me regarding exactly?" Doug asked.

"They're all jumbled. But simply, I'm not sure if what I'm feeling towards you means something more than just friendship." Evie admitted.

"You think that you might be falling in love with me?" Doug asked.

"That's what I'm not sure about. I know that I'm concerned about what you think of how close I am with Jay and Carlos; and how people who know the history between our families would think if we were to ever start dating; but is that the basis of falling in love? I don't know what love feels like, and I don't really have a clear understanding on what love is... it's not like my mother really taught me about love." Evie started to rant.

"Evie, Evie, calm down." Doug said as he took Evie's hands in his.

"My friends and I don't do or know feelings on the positive end of the spectrum very well... we never encountered them on the island." Evie said after she took a few deep breaths.

"When you think about Mal, and Jay, and Carlos, what is the first feeling that comes to your mind?" Doug asked.

"Protection." Evie said immediately.

"And why do you think of protection when you think of your friends?" Doug questioned.

"Because of who our parents are, if we weren't together, we were vulnerable to others retaliating against us. We needed to be able to rely on each other and keep each other safe since we couldn't get any of that from our parents." Evie explained.

"Protection is a positive emotion Evie." Doug said as he moved to sit next to her. "Now what are some other things that come to mind when you think about your friends?" He asked.

"Caring, loyalty and... and love." Evie said, faltering before she said 'love'.

"All of those are positive emotions as well. Just because your parents were villains, doesn't mean that you and your friends don't know about positive emotions. You just never realized that that's what you were feeling because you never had someone who could put it in perspective for you before. All you four had on the island was each other, and you all had pretty similar upbringings, so each of you need an outsider's opinion to make you realize what you're feeling." Doug explained.

"How does that explain the jealousy I feel towards Ben and Mal?" Evie asked slowly.

"Let's start with this: why are you jealous of Ben and Mal?" Doug asked.

"It's not so much being jealous of both of them, but being jealous of Mal." Evie explained.

"Then why are you jealous of her? She's your best friend, you should have no reason to be jealous." Doug said.

"My mom showed me tough love. She taught me how to be beautiful and how to be a good housewife. Mal's mom only showed her how to be evil. Mal's mom only raised her to be the next 'Mistress of All Evil'. Mal knows less about love then I do, yet she was able to somehow find love with Ben. I'm jealous that it seemed so easy for her, despite the fact that she gave him a love spell. And even once Ben found out, he was completely cool with it." Evie explained.

"So you're questioning why, since you two are best friends, practically sisters, it has been so easy for her to find love, but has been so difficult for you to do the same?" Doug asked.

"I guess I am." Evie said with a sigh of defeat.

"Evie, finding love happens differently for different people. You shouldn't try to rush to find love with someone just because someone else that you are close to has found it themselves. Finding love takes varying amounts of time. When you are supposed to find love, you will find it. There are times, however, where love finds you." Doug said.

"And how will I know if I'm falling in love with someone?" Evie asked.

"What I've heard about it, when you find love, your heart and your head are both at peace." Doug said, his heart breaking a little knowing that Evie's heart and head weren't both at peace just yet.

"So if they aren't quite there yet, but it seems like they could be getting there, is that what falling in love is like?" Evie asked.

"I wouldn't know. I've found love, and it was instantaneous." Doug admitted.

"Love at first sight..." Evie said slowly.

"Essentially. Although technically it was love at second sight." Doug agreed.

"But it happened when you really looked at me." Evie said in a small voice, yet full of understanding.

"Yeah." Doug admitted.

After that, Evie wasn't sure what to say. She had known since the beginning that Doug had liked her, it was obvious by the way he couldn't take his eyes off of her, and was really bummed out when Chad had given her the note to meet under the bleachers. But had she really been so dense as to not realize just how deep Doug's feelings for her ran? _'Maybe I don't know what loving someone really special feels like, but how could I not realize that that is how much Doug liked me? Why couldn't I have seen his affections the way that they were meant to be portrayed from the beginning? Why couldn't I see how great of a guy I had in my life from day 1? Why did I have to get caught up in Chad's not-so-Charming presence and miss that someone loved me for me all along?'_ Evie thought to herself and a small sob escaped her lips as tears started to fill her eyes.

"Why me?" Evie asked as she tried to blink away the tears before they began.

"What do you mean?" Doug questioned.

"Why, out of all the girls in Auradon Prep that you could have, why did you fall in love with me?" Evie reiterated.

"Love can't be explained 99% of the time." Doug said as he turned Evie's head so that she was looking at him.

"But... our parents..." Evie said slowly as she tried to keep eye contact with him.

"Our parents don't matter. We aren't them." Doug said.

"Our friends?" Evie asked.

"Will be happy as long as we are happy." Doug finished.

"Us?" Evie questioned.

"We just need to listen to what our hearts are saying." Doug explained.

"Oh." Evie said simply.

"Look, Evie, I can't tell you what to feel. No one can. If you just listen to what your heart is saying, your head will eventually fall in line, and you'll be able to have the peace that you need to know that you're in love." Doug said with a sigh.

"Okay." Evie replied in a small voice.

"So um... see you in the morning?" Doug asked awkwardly.

"Yeah, see you in the morning." Evie replied with a small nod before Doug got off the bed and headed towards the door.

"Good night again Evie." Doug said.

"Good night to you too Doug." Evie replied before moving to the center of her bed and pulling the covers back over her body and closing her eyes.


End file.
